Game 1: Marlies 5, Monsters 2 – The Good, The Bad and The Ugly

The Toronto Marlies took Game One of their North Division Final versus the Cleveland Monsters on Wednesday night by a score of 5-2 at Coca-Cola Coliseum. Kasimir Kaskisuo made 14 saves in the victory.

The Good

The Marlies’ power play was sensational, scoring four times on seven opportunities. During a stretch of 3 minutes, 43 seconds in the second period, Chris Mueller, Dmytro Timashov and Trevor Moore netted consecutive goals with the man advantage.

Pierre Engvall had gotten the Marlies on the board earlier in the second frame, at even strength.

Any hope that the Monsters had in rallying to tie the game was snuffed out late in regulation when they took yet another penalty. Moore capitalized with his second marker of the game, with just 16 seconds remaining.

Jeremy Bracco registered four assists.

Timothy Liljegren made a terrific stretch to Pierre Engvall for a breakaway attempt in the third period.

Chris Mueller on the Marlies’ PP: “Oh we got a lot of confidence. When you play with a guy like Jeremy Bracco, you take one off, you know he’s looking for another one, you take that one away he’s got another one up his sleeve. So, we got a lot of good guys on our team that are skilled guys that look to make plays.”

The Bad

With the teams tied 1-1 early in the second period, both Andreas Borgman and Dmytro Timashov left Mark Letestu unattended to score what was the go-ahead goal for Cleveland.

Bracco was victimized by the cross bar twice in the first period. He could have easily had six points in the game.

The Ugly

Calle Rosen fell awkwardly into the boards at the 3:12 mark of the first period and, despite skating off under his own power, did not return. The Marlies played with five defencemen for the rest of the game.

Coach Sheldon Keefe on Rosen: “I saw the play, it looked to be an unfortunate play where he just lost his balance. Took a bit of a shot and then lost his balance and just couldn’t control himself with all the speed. I don’t have much of an update other than x-rays were negative with him but he was obviously not able to come back to play today. So, we will know more I guess in the next coming days leading up to game two. X-rays were negative, so that’s good news and we’ll just see how he is in the morning.”

About The Author

Rob is an avid Leafs fan, and Leafs media member working for Stan Fischler Hockey Services. He is also the author of Blue And White Beat, and is a part-owner and a regular columnist at TMLfans.ca.
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